


Tainted Reflection

by babybrotherdean



Series: Stained Glass [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Dark, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pedophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:59:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8397214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybrotherdean/pseuds/babybrotherdean
Summary: Sam Winchester loves his brother. He trusts his brother. It's just hard not to let this change things.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The first of... maybe a few timestamps for this 'verse. I've definitely got some more ideas in mind, and it's just a matter of getting them on paper. And of course, if there's anything you guys are interested in seeing, then feel free to let me know.
> 
> The warnings for this are more or less the same as for Stained Glass: discussions of pedophilic disorder follow, but besides some thoughts and implications of thoughts, nothing involving sexual situations with underage characters. 
> 
> This takes place immediately after Stained Glass, from Sam's POV. I might expand on this a little more later, but I just wanted to get this part out.

Sam Winchester loves his brother. He trusts his brother. It’s hard not to, after growing up in a world that gave them nothing but each other. It’s hard not to grow dependent on the only person who’s been present for his entire life- present until he made a choice and walked away from them, anyways- and even after the fact, Dean has always been so ready to forgive him. To take him back in as if Sam hasn’t broken his heart into tiny pieces every single time he’s left.

Sam trusts his big brother, but as Dean all but slams the motel room’s door shut behind him, the words left ringing through his mind still turn his stomach, and he finds himself fumbling for a chair, a table, anything with which to support himself before his knees give out.

_“You want me to tell you that I’m a dirty fucking pedophile, Sam?”_

He feels sick. He feels like he needs to make a run for the toilet before he pukes out everything he’s eaten in the last day, because Dean can’t- Dean can’t be serious. It’s some twisted joke, because there’s no way his brother… no way that _Dean_ …

But it’s- it’s starting to make sense, too, and the longer Sam thinks about it, the more pieces that seem to suddenly fit together. As he stares at nothing and tries to cling to reality, he starts to feel the slow, horrifying realization that the clues have always been there. He just never thought to look close enough.

Sam doesn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about that brief period of his childhood when Dean started to ignore him. Every other pair of siblings would’ve told him it was natural; really, he was lucky as it was that his big brother paid him so much attention when they were kids to begin with… but other pairs of siblings weren’t like them. They didn’t grow up clinging to a car and each other and absolutely nothing else. They weren’t living a life of demons and monsters and endless highways, and they didn’t understand what he and Dean had. For Dean to decide one day that they couldn’t spend any more time together- that sharing a bed was for little kids and even hugging was off-limits because it put a damper on whatever image he was trying to present- it didn’t make sense then, even when Sam was just a dumb little kid who didn’t want anything more than he wanted to spend time with his hero. His big brother.

But now, with everything Dean’s told him in that single, heavy word, Sam sort of wants to throw up again.

He was a kid. Dean was someone just starting to approach sexual maturity, and someone who… who looked at him and saw a kid. A _kid._

He’s not sure whether it’s the implications of Dean’s distance or his own sense of guilt making him feel sick, but it’s a long few steps to the bathroom and he doesn’t bother to lock the door.

Sam clings to the toilet like his only lifeline and watches, unwillingly, as his entire life seems to play out all over again at the backs of his eyelids while he trembles to pieces. Every hug, every kiss, every time he crawled into his brother’s bed even after they stopped sharing. Every time Dean touched him, every time Dean smiled, every time Dean was close or affectionate or kind-

There’s not much in his stomach after a day of salad and coffee and hunting, but Sam pukes, anyways. The acid burns the back of his throat and brings tears to his eyes that were already trying to escape, leaving him choking on them and gasping for air.

Of course Dean wouldn’t want to deal with the kids they met during hunts. The fear makes sense, suddenly, the stiffness with which he’d always hand them off to Sam, and- and tonight Sam had tried to put that back on him. Sam had shoved whatever Dean had cobbled together as a coping method right back in his face and the sob that bubbles up in his chest just makes him feel worse.

Even as he shakily makes his way to his feet, straightening up just enough to turn on the sink and try to wash out the bile in his mouth, Sam struggles to process everything that’s making his throat tight and his chest ache. Every bit of guilt, of disgust, of anger and hurt and confusion and understanding- he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel, knowing that his brother’s been struggling with this for God knows how long. Knowing that his brother feels the way he does when he looks at a kid, and it’s so-

Fuck, but Dean’s always been so good with them, too. Kids have always gravitated towards Dean, and Sam himself was no exception, and always watching him push them away was just…

Sam can’t help but wonder, clinging to cold porcelain and lapping up water from the tap’s flow as best he can, how badly it hurt to do that. He always thought Dean would have made a great dad, and this just-

Eventually, he slides back down to the floor, stomach a little more settled but mind still swirling, tripping over itself with every attempt to make sense of this new information. It’s too much, and at the same time, it isn’t enough; the academic in him wants to sit his brother down and question him, fill out every missing facet of his experience and try to understand. Try to draw connections of his own without factoring out Dean’s thoughts and feelings, central as they are to this whole situation, but…

But the brother in him just wants Dean to come home.

It’s not hard to imagine him now, slumped over the bar in the first dive he came across, throwing back whatever drink they’re willing to sell him like it’ll make the hurt go away, but Sam’s been down that road, too, and knows damn well it’ll only make things worse. Thing is, though, he’s not- he’s not all that sure how to make this better, either. Demons, angels, monsters, Heaven and Hell - give him anything at all but this, because this is the one thing that he doesn’t know how to fix.

With Dean out on his own and out of his reach and fingers that itch for action and some kind of a solution, Sam takes a slow breath and hauls himself back to his feet. This might not be as easy as finding a new case or hacking into a local traffic cam feed, and it might take a little longer than it does to print a fake ID or learn how to best kill a djinn-

But if there’s one thing that Sam has always been good at, it’s research. His laptop is still on the motel’s desk and he sits down heavily, flips it open, and pulls up a search engine.

He starts with a little desperation and an illegally-downloaded digital copy of the DSM-IV. At least it’ll give him something to do until Dean stumbles home.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a brief note: though I haven't strictly identified when this takes place, it's after season three and before probably season... sevenish. Most likely in the early/middle era of season four. On that note, what Sam ends up looking into is the DSM-IV - TR, which was published in the year 2000 and has now, as of 2013, been replaced by the DSM-V. I'll try to be true to what it said, rather than its current version, just for the sake of authenticity, but bear in mind that parts of it may be outdated and/or now obsolete. I'll try to make notes of which parts those are if I delve into it at all.
> 
> In any case, thank you for reading, and I hope you all have a nice day.


End file.
